The Future of Higher Education
We were both early adopters of technology in the classroom. Jason has been working with technology in higher education for more than 16 years. I earned my first master’s degree in an online environment and also took a few of my undergrad classes online (there weren’t many to choose from back then). And we all know that technology changes at such a rapid pace it is hard to keep up with and be prepared for what is coming next. Let me give you a real life example of what I’m talking about. A little over ten years ago I lived in San Francisco and sold T1 connections to businesses. The speed of a T1 line is 1.5 Mbps and we charged about $1,200 per month for that. Today, I work for Charter Business and we sell a 100 Mbps connection for less than $300 per month. That is HUGE increase in bandwidth – 1.5 vs 100 – and a significant drop in price. And that was in just the last 10 years or so. I can’t even imagine what bandwidth, the Internet, our smart phones, tablets, computers and classrooms will be like in ten years.
Needless to say, we are both very interested to see how the use of technology is going to further impact higher education. The change is already happening and has been for some time now. A bit quietly – but gaining momentum. There have been some completely online universities around for some time now (University of Phoenix, Capella University) but now more and more traditional brick and mortar universities are joining in. MIT offers virtually all of its courses online for free! And then there is the Khan Academy where you can learn about all kinds of academic topics of varying levels for free as well (https://www.khanacademy.org/). And right now in this very class or professor lives in The Netherlands. How cool is that?
So what does this mean for higher education? If you can take all the same classes as an “enrolled” MIT student can you then say you are MIT educated? Will this lead to some sort of testing that can prove you understand the material and are worthy of the degree? How will that work financially? Will we start seeing the divide of in person classes versus on-line classes based more on learning style? Or maybe that would come more out of a geographical need.
Of course we can’t predict exactly what higher education will look like in say 2020. But, we can look at trends, see what experts are saying and learn more about what the online experience has become. With this information, we should be able to get a glimpse at what the future looks like and maybe some of us will be able to use this information to plan for our own futures.
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Issues and Trends in Media 
I would suggest considering the design of the learning environments. Will shift your discourse away from instructional to learning? Also, will you take a systematic look at higher education?
When I applied to this masters program I had no Idea that my teachers would be overseas. I think it is really interesting. We are breaking barrios in education through the medium of online classes. In the past if you wanted to get instruction from particular people they either had to come to you or you had to go to them. Institutions still give degrees not individual teachers. Institutions now have the ability to contract what they consider the best teacher without the geographical obstacles. Students also can study at varied locations and stay right at home.
In the future I see more and more students studying this way and I see it growing into not just colleges but high schools, middle schools, and eventually elementary schools. It will be like choosing the best program for your child to study in, where school systems or states will not be a factor. They just haven’t figured out what they will do with the attendance laws yet. Many homeschooled students use a variety of online learning and have been for sometime.
The speed at which technology is advancing is amazing. We live out in the “sticks” and dial up was our only option for years, or we could pay $500 to have satellite internet. In more recent years, our local cell phone carrier came out with an air card (the local companies signal is much better for us than national companies), and satellite internet now has a much more affordable initial cost – which is what we had installed 6 months ago. NOW, the same satellite company has a faster speed available that we can upgrade to! shew! It is awesome that at 5am, in my PJs at my kitchen table, I am able to do my coursework while my children are sleeping! For me it is largely a matter of convenience (obviously) than learning style. I actually prefer the face to face interaction of a classroom setting and have never been a strong reader or writer. However, because of the convenience and interest I am pursuing this program online, which, in turn, is causing me to step out of my comfort zone – a great growth opportunity!
I wonder if a study has been conducted on how much time an elementary, middle, and high school student spends on average using online resources/class materials for their classes during school hours. I know that total online high school options are available for students who home-school and some total online courses are available to public high school students. As technology advances so will the abilities and understanding of those using such things as “online universities”. These students who are now in elementary school may have options for them to attend completely free/online universities.